Slant shelf vending machine magazine

ABSTRACT

A slant shelf vending machine magazine is comprised of a plurality of superposed inclined shelves having their lower ends discharging into a substantially vertical passageway with an article control member associated in the storage space of the lower end of each shelf and movable in response to the presence of an article in the associated shelf into the shelf next above in a manner to block movement of an article therefrom into the passageway thus assuring substantially first-in and first-out delivery of articles to be vended.

United States Patent [72] Inventor Franklin D. Klem Pittsburgh, Pa.

[21] Appl. No. 32,925

[22] Filed Apr. 29, 1970 [45] Patented Oct. 19, 1971 [73] AssigneeWestinghouse Electric Corporation Pittsburgh, Pa.

[54] SLANT SHELF VENDING MACHINE MAGAZINE 6 Claims, 6 Drawing Figs.

US. Cl 221/109 G07f 11/28 FieldofSearch 221/107,

108, 109, 1 l l, 112; 214/6 M, 8.5 R, 8.5 A, 8.5 K

[56] References Cited UNITED STATES PATENTS 2,549,082 4/1951 Hall221/109 2,889,074 6/1959 Reynolds 221/108 Primary Examiner-Robert B.Reeves Assistant Examiner-David A. Scherbel Attorneys-F. H. Henson andF. E. Blake ABSTRACT: A slant shelf vending machine magazine iscomprised of a plurality of superposed inclined shelves having theirlower ends discharging into a substantially vertical passageway with anarticle control member associated in the storage space of the lower endof each shelf and movable in response to the presence of an article inthe associated shelf into the shelf next above in a manner to blockmovement of an article therefrom into the passageway thus assuringsubstantially first-in and first-out delivery of articles to be vended.

PATENTEDUCT 19 I971 SHEET 10F 3 FIG. 2

FIG.

FATENTEDUCT 19 \en SHEET 2 OF 3 VENTOR Klern 4&4 A TORNEY WITNESSES 9??MA,

SLANT SHELF VENDING MACHINE MAGAZINE CROSS-REFERENCES TO RELATED PATENTAPPLICATIONS So far as known, this invention is not related to anycopending patent applications.

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION It is well known that slant shelf vendingmachines afford a very large article capacity for a given storage space.It is also known that it is desirable to provide a first-in andfirst-out article delivery for vending machines with large capacities inorder to assure so-called product rotation and thus prevent any givenarticle from being stored in the machine for an excessive period oftime. This invention provides a simple and reliable arrangement forobtaining the desired product rotation of substantially all articlesstored in a slant shelf vending machine magazine.

PRIOR ART The following list of patents may be of interest but are notbelieved to disclose the arrangement of the invention:

3,416,706 Gross 12/7/68 2,408,380 Dennis 10/1/46 1,628,852 Lea SUMMARYOF THE INVENTION In accordance with the invention, a plurality ofsuperposed inclined shelves are disposed with their lowerarticle-discharging ends adjacent a substantially vertical passagewayextending to the vending machine gate. Each inclined shelf is providedwith an article control member associated with its lower end in a mannerto be movable from a normal position within the associated shelf to anoperated position extending into the shelf next above in a manner toblock passage of articles from the shelf next above into the passageway.The presence of one or more articles in the lower end of each shelf willmove the associated article control member to its operated position. Inthe preferred form of the invention, a flapper door is pivotally mountedat the lower end of each shelf to have a normal position closing the endof the shelf and in effect providing an extension of an interiorvertical wall of the passageway. The passage of an article from theshelf into the vertical passageway will move the flapper door to anoperated position into the passageway, and means associated with theflapper will engage the article control member of the shelf next belowto prevent it from moving to an operated position while the articles onthe shelf next above are moving through the associated door into thevertical passageway.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS Further features and advantages of theinvention will be apparent with references to the followingspecification and drawings in which:

FIG. 1 is a schematic illustration of the vending machine magazine ofthe invention in a totally empty condition;

FIG. 2 is a view similar to FIG. 1 but showing the vending machinesubstantially empty except for articles on the lower shelf beingdelivered to the vending gate;

FIG. 3 is a view similar to FIGS. 1 and 2 but showing the vendingmachine in the condition of vending articles from an upper shelf withlower shelves empty;

FIG. 4 is a view similar to FIG. 3 but showing the vending machine inthe condition of being loaded with articles on its lower shelves whilestill being in condition to vend the articles on the upper shelves;

H 5 is a detailed fragmentary side elevations! view partly in set-mm ofthe article control members and flapper doors as arranged at the lowerends of each of the superposed inclined shelves; and

FIG. 6 is an enlarged perspective elevation of the lower end of threesuperposed inclined shelves to show details of the construction.

DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENT Referring to FIGS. 1-4 of thedrawings, it will be seen that the vending machine of the invention iscomprised of the plurality of superposed inclined shelves such as shownat 10-13 with their lower article discharging ends positioned adjacent asubstantially vertical passageway 14 through which articles to be vendedare moved to the lowermost inclined shelf 15 for vending by thearticle-vending gate generally shown at 16. It should be understood thatthis invention is not limited to any particular form of article-vendinggate mechanism 16 and since the type of vending gate does not form apart of the invention, any well-known form of vending gate obvious tothose skilled in the art may be used. Therefore, the details of thevending gate mechanism 16 are omitted herewith. The respective articlecontrol member 20-23 of the invention is associated within the lower endof each inclined shelf storage volume provided by the respectiveinclined shelves 10-13. For example, the article control member 20 isshown to be pivotally secured to the magazine structure to have a normalposition depending within the storage volume for the inclined shelf 10.Similarly, the control members 21-23 are supported to have normalpositions depending within the storage volume of the associated inclinedshelves 11-13. As is shown more clearly by FIG. 2 of the drawings, thepresence of articles to be vended, such as the articles 30 and 31 on thelower inclined shelf 10, will move the article control member 20 asassociated therewith to an operated position extending into the storagespace for the next above inclined shelf 11 to prevent movement of anyarticle on said shelf 11 into the vertical passageway 14 while articleto be vended such as shown at 30 or 31 are present on the lower shelf10. This is clearly shown by FIG. 3 of the drawings wherein the controlmember 22 extends into article-blocking position to block the deliveryof article 60 on the inclined shelf 13 next above.

The pivotal flapper doors such as shown at 24 to 27 are each associatedwith the lower end of a respective inclined shelf 10-13 in a manner tohave a normal position shown by FIG. 1 of the drawings whereby the doorstructures 24-27 provide extensions of the interior vertical wall forthe passageway 14. As shown by FIG. 2 of the drawings, when articles tobe vended are present on an inclined shelf such as the shelf 10, thearticles will move into the vertical passageway 14 by pivoting theflapper door 24 to the position shown. Similarly, articles on the otherinclined shelves when permitted to move into the vertical passageway bythe mechanism of the invention will pivot the associated flapper doorsuch as the flapper door 26 shown by FIG. 3 of the drawings to theoperated position while the flapper doors 24 and 25 remain in theirnormal positions to provide extensions of the vertical wall for thepassageway M, and help to prevent articles being vended, such as thearticles 34-36, from jamming against the discharge end of a lower one ofan inclined shelf.

As most clearly shown by FIG. 4 of the drawings, each of the flapperdoors 24-27 is provided with a side projection, such as shown at 26a forengaging the article control member 21 of the shelf 11 next below in theoperated position of the flapper door 26 to maintain the control member21 in its normal position not engaging any of the articles, such asarticles 50 and 51, on the shelf 12 next above. Thus, a partly emptymachine with articles still to be vended from the shelves 12 and 13, canhave their empty shelves such as the shelves 10 and 11 reloaded, but thelowermost new article, such as the article 40, on the inclined shelf 11will not move the control member 21 into a position blocking theremainder of the vending of the articles. such as articles 50 and 51,from the inclined shelf 11 next above. Therefore the first-in and firstout cycle wlll continue wlth articles being vended from shelves 12 and13 before vending articles from shelf 10. ln the loading and unloadingof the machine being described in connection with F IG. 4 of thedrawings, the articles such as articles 50 and 51, remaining on theinclined shelf 12 will continue to be vended including any additionalarticles that may have been reloaded on the shelf 12 following which thearticle control member 22 will return to its normal position allowingarticles to be vended from the shelf next above; namely, shelf 13 intothe vertical passageway 14 through the pivotal flapper door 27. Aftervending all of the articles from shelf 13 and the articles therefromstored in the vertical passageway 14, the article at the end of theshelf 10 can move into the passageway 14 for vending.

It is believed that the arrangement of the invention to assure productrotation for substantially all of the articles loaded and reloaded intoan inclined shelf vending machine will now be apparent by reference tothe foregoing description in connection with FIGS. 1-4 of the drawings.For a more detailed description of one preferred structural arrangementof the invention, reference is now made to FIGS. and 6 of the drawings.The article control member 20, associated with the storage space of thelowermost inclined shelf 10, is pivotally supported at 70 and normallydisposed to depend by gravity within the storage volume of the lowermostinclined shelf 10. Similarly, the article control member 21 is pivotedat 71 to be associated with the next above inclined shelf 11. Also,associated with the lower end of a respective one of each inclined shelf-13 is a flapper door 24-27 and it will be seen that each flapper doorhas a normal position with its end wall forming an extension of theinside vertical wall for the passageway 14. As is most clearly shown byFIG. 6 of the drawings, each of the article control members, such as thearticle control or 21, is provided with a side projection 20a or 21a.The side projection 20a for control member 20 is positioned to beengaged by the depending ear a of the flapper door 25 in an operatedposition to prevent the article control member 20 from being moved byreloaded articles on the associate shelf to an operated position thatwould block further movement of articles of the next above inclinedshelf 11. In the simplest form of the invention being described, thedepending side ear for each respective flapper door 24-27 alternatelydepends on opposite sides of the inclined shelf magazine such that ear25a depends on the right side of the magazine as shown in FIG. 6 of thedrawings to engage the projection 20a of the article control member 20while the depending side ear 26a of the flapper door 26 next abovedepends on the left side of the magazine in a manner to engage theprojection extension 21a of the control member 21. Obviously, variousmodified arrangements for interlocking the movement of the respectiveflapper door and a respective article control member of a shelf nextbelow will occur to those skilled in the art.

Various modifications will occur to those skilled in the art.

I claim:

1. A slant shelf vending machine magazine comprising a substantiallyvertical passageway for downward gravity movement of articles to avending position, a plurality of superposed inclined shelves with theirlower ends discharging into said passageway for gravity movement ofarticles thereon into said passageway, and an article control membermovably positioned to have a normal position in the lower end of thestorage space of an associated one of each shelf and movable to anoperated position extending into the storage space of the shelf nextabove the associated shelf in a manner to block movement of an articleon the next above shelf into said passageway, each of said controlmembers being moved to the operated position by the presence of anarticle at the lower end of the associated shelf.

2. The invention of claim 1 in which each control member is moved to theoperated position by the presence of at least two articles at the lowerend of the associated shelf.

3. The invention of claim 2 in which a flapper is pivotally mounted atthe end of an associated shelf to have a normal position covering theend of an associated shelf and defining a wall of the vertlcalpassageway, each of said flappers being movable into the passageway bythe passage of an article into the vertical passageway.

4. The invention of claim 3 in which said flapper is provided with meansengaging the control member associated with the shelf next below whensaid flapper is in the operated position to thereby prevent the engagedcontrol member from moving to its operated position.

5. The invention of claim I in which a flapper is pivotally mounted atthe end of an associated shelf to have a normal position covering theend of an associated shelf and defining a wall of the verticalpassageway, each of said flappers being movable into the passageway bythe passage of an article into the passageway.

6. The invention of claim 5 in which said flapper is provided with meansengaging the control member associated with the shelf next below whensaid flapper is in the operated position to thereby prevent the engagedcontrol member from moving to its operated position.

1. A slant shelf vending machine magazine comprisinG a substantiallyvertical passageway for downward gravity movement of articles to avending position, a plurality of superposed inclined shelves with theirlower ends discharging into said passageway for gravity movement ofarticles thereon into said passageway, and an article control membermovably positioned to have a normal position in the lower end of thestorage space of an associated one of each shelf and movable to anoperated position extending into the storage space of the shelf nextabove the associated shelf in a manner to block movement of an articleon the next above shelf into said passageway, each of said controlmembers being moved to the operated position by the presence of anarticle at the lower end of the associated shelf.
 2. The invention ofclaim 1 in which each control member is moved to the operated positionby the presence of at least two articles at the lower end of theassociated shelf.
 3. The invention of claim 2 in which a flapper ispivotally mounted at the end of an associated shelf to have a normalposition covering the end of an associated shelf and defining a wall ofthe vertical passageway, each of said flappers being movable into thepassageway by the passage of an article into the vertical passageway. 4.The invention of claim 3 in which said flapper is provided with meansengaging the control member associated with the shelf next below whensaid flapper is in the operated position to thereby prevent the engagedcontrol member from moving to its operated position.
 5. The invention ofclaim 1 in which a flapper is pivotally mounted at the end of anassociated shelf to have a normal position covering the end of anassociated shelf and defining a wall of the vertical passageway, each ofsaid flappers being movable into the passageway by the passage of anarticle into the passageway.
 6. The invention of claim 5 in which saidflapper is provided with means engaging the control member associatedwith the shelf next below when said flapper is in the operated positionto thereby prevent the engaged control member from moving to itsoperated position.